Popovich is considered one of the greatest coaches in NBA history. He is currently tied with Phil Jackson with a record 20 consecutive winning seasons.[3] He has won five NBA championships as a head coach, all with the Spurs, a feat achieved only by four others in NBA history—Phil Jackson, Red Auerbach, Pat Riley, and John Kundla.[3] He is also one of nine coaches to have won 1,000 NBA games.[3]

Popovich served five years of required active duty in the United States Air Force, during which he toured Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with the U.S. Armed Forces Basketball Team. In 1972, he was selected as captain of the Armed Forces Team, which won the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championship. This earned him an invitation to the 1972 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team trials.

Popovich returned to the Air Force Academy as an assistant coach in 1973 under head coach Hank Egan, a position he held for six years. Egan would later become an assistant coach under Popovich for the San Antonio Spurs.

During his time with the coaching staff of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Popovich attended the University of Denver and earned his master's degree in physical education and sports sciences. In 1979, he was named the head basketball coach of Pomona-Pitzer's men's team. Popovich coached Pomona-Pitzer men's basketball from 1979 to 1988, leading the team to its first outright title in 68 years.

During his time as head coach at Pomona-Pitzer, Popovich became a disciple and later a close friend of head coach Larry Brown at the University of Kansas. Popovich took off the 1985–86 season at Pomona-Pitzer to become a volunteer assistant at Kansas, where he could study directly under Brown. Popovich returned to Pomona-Pitzer and resumed his duties as head coach the next season.

In 1994, Popovich returned to San Antonio as the general manager and Vice President of Basketball Operations after current owner Peter Holt purchased the team. Popovich's first move was to sign Avery Johnson to become the team's starting point guard. Another one of Popovich's early moves in San Antonio was to trade Dennis Rodman to the Chicago Bulls for Will Perdue.[9] Rodman was not fond of Popovich, as Rodman said in his first book Bad As I Wanna Be.[10]

After the Spurs went out to a 3–15 start in the 1996–97 season, with David Robinson sidelined with a preseason back injury, Popovich fired coach Bob Hill and named himself head coach. However, Robinson broke his foot after only six games and was lost for the season. Sean Elliott was also limited to 39 games due to injury, and Chuck Person and Vinny Del Negro also missed significant time. With a reduced roster that included an aging Dominique Wilkins, the Spurs struggled and won only 17 games for the remainder of the season for an overall record of 20–62. However, the Spurs' disastrous season allowed them to win the first overall pick in the NBA Lottery, which they used to draft Tim Duncan out of Wake Forest University. The Spurs blossomed as 6'11" Duncan teamed up with the 7'1" David Robinson to give them a "Twin Tower" offense and defense for several years. After recovering to win 56 games in Duncan's rookie year and Popovich's first full year as coach, the Spurs came all the way back in 1999 to win their first NBA title.

In 2002, Popovich relinquished his position as general manager to R. C. Buford, who had served as the team's head scout. Popovich and Buford were both given their starts in the NBA in 1988 as assistants on Brown's coaching staff with the Spurs.

Popovich earned his 500th career victory on March 2, 2006, becoming the fourth fastest coach in NBA history to reach that milestone. He led the team to a 63–19 season in 2006, which set a new franchise season record.

On April 4, 2008, Popovich returned to the U.S. Air Force Academy to receive the academy's award of Distinguished Graduate. Despite his four NBA titles at the time, Popovich said it was the most meaningful award he had ever received.[11]

Popovich won his 100th playoff game on May 19, 2008, in a road game against the New Orleans Hornets. The win tied him for third place in all-time playoff coaching victories with his friend and mentor, Larry Brown.

On November 29, 2012, Popovich sat out starters Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginóbili, and Danny Green for a nationally televised game against the Miami Heat. Popovich has frequently sat out his starters on road trips over the years to ensure they have enough rest for the playoffs; the Spurs' roster was among the oldest in the league. NBA commissioner David Stern was outraged when he learned of this and said on the night of the game that the Spurs' actions were "unacceptable," and "substantial sanctions [would] be forthcoming."[13] On November 30, Stern fined the Spurs $250,000 for what he called "a disservice to the league and the fans." According to Stern, Popovich had not informed the Heat, the league or the media in a suitable time-frame that the four players were not making the trip to Miami.[14] Stern's decision was criticized by commentators such as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, who said, "Stern doesn't care about the realities of his league, just the appearances. To him, the appearance on Thursday night was that Popovich had tried to embarrass him on national television and that's why the commissioner tossed that tantrum."[15]

On March 22, 2013, when the Spurs beat the Utah Jazz, Popovich became the second head coach in NBA history, after the Jazz's own Jerry Sloan, to win 900 regular-season games with one team.

Popovich led the Spurs to the 2013 NBA Finals to face the Miami Heat. The series lasted seven games, but the Spurs lost the series to give the team their first ever Finals loss.

Coach Popovich during a regular season game in 2011

On April 22, 2014, Popovich was awarded the Red Auerbach Trophy as he won the NBA Coach of the Year for the third time in his career.[16] He would also win his fifth NBA championship with San Antonio that same season, beating the Heat 4–1 in the Finals.

On February 9, 2015, Popovich became the ninth coach in NBA history to win 1,000 games when the Spurs defeated the Indiana Pacers 95–93. He and Jerry Sloan are the only two coaches in NBA history to win 1,000 games with one franchise.

Popovich has spent considerable time and money working with several charities and nonprofits with the likes of San Antonio Food Bank and Innocence Project. He also took part in Shoes That Fit organization which aims to deliver shoes to more than 200 students at Gates Elementary School. Despite being vocal about serving the community, several of Popovich's charitable efforts go unpublicized such as donations made to the relief in the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria.[25] Popovich is helping raise funds for J/P HRO, a disaster relief program which runs relief programs in Haiti, and various disaster relief organizations in the U.S. and Caribbean.[26]

^Wojnarowski, Adrian (10 June 2007). "'Pop' art". Yahoo! Sports. Sometimes, you get the idea that Popovich is fighting a war within himself. "He's even got the Serbo-Croatian conflict going on," Buford said. "His mother was Croatian and his father was Serbian. That's the battle he faces internally."

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